


from beast back to man again

by kazahaya0



Category: Inazuma Eleven GO
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 04:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20540429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazahaya0/pseuds/kazahaya0
Summary: Fei never cared about wars, retaliation or revenge as much as Saryuu had. That’s why he is visiting him now. Here is to new beginnings.





	from beast back to man again

**Author's Note:**

> Set right after Chrono Stone.

“They’re punishing me!” Saryuu exclaims, open arms and a false hint of optimism in his voice as he laughs dramatically. “For what I’ve done!!”

Fei doesn’t budge, he doesn’t find Saryuu’s joke funny. He sits by Saryuu’s bed, a book in hand. Maybe he has just been outside reading it, maybe he was in his other room. Maybe he feels pity for Saryuu.

“They’re punishing all of us. I tried to warn you.”

“We were in this together Fei.”

It sounds like an accusation but it’s true. They stay quiet for a moment. 

Saryuu had been the mastermind, the true emperor, but what had Fei been if not his most trusted subject, his right hand knight? It had been Fei who had gone to the past, sacrificing his memories. It had been him who had endured all the preparations in between time periods and had brought Tenma and Raimon to Saryuu. But it had also been Fei who doubted his orders, who had grown to love his friends, who had found his true self, what made him happier, who had rebelled against him. Fei was too sweet for such a mission, he should have known. Fei never cared about wars or retaliation or revenge as much as Saryuu had.

That’s why he is visiting him now.

The days spent at the hospital are not that different from each other; eventually they seem to mingle into one another, creating a mass of day and night that goes undisturbed except for meals and sleep.

Saryuu had taken the vaccine a few days ago, just before Fei got back from the past. One of the first in fact, to do it. For caution obviously, he had been the great leader, but also because he volunteered himself. Might as well end it quickly.

Some members of Feida were elusive to El Dorado for a long time, but the biggest rebellious forces had been contained, accounted for and stopped.

As of now Feida no longer existed, not as an organization anyway.

Saryuu had tasted defeat but had also realized he had friends as well. All of ex-Feida felt more like a family at the moment, by virtue of their own relationships alone, even if all they shared at first was a desire to rule the world.

The antidote’s administration and its effects are peaceful for the most part. There are some secondary effects and dizziness and vomits were frequent. The feel of gradually losing their powers is, for some the most natural thing in the world, but for Saryuu it makes him feel empty. He often lays awake at night with senseless thoughts. He doesn’t exactly know what to feel, everything feels out of place, like things and experiences are now being replaced by new ones. Things he had never paid attention to, things he despised even, being brought upon a new light, appreciated.

This is the most confusing of all and puzzles him every day, to know he has a heart after all.

In his room he doesn’t have a lot to entertain himself with, he wishes they would let him go to the library more often. But Saryuu, as tame as he had become, is under a constant tight lock. There are often adults visiting him, medics, psychiatrists, a politician or two. Old folks from El Dorado who reeked of propositions for his “new future”. These things are to be expected.

It is only a few more days before he and the first batch of ex-Second Stage children are fit to go back into society. With a few rules and under certain constraints of course. He has already received his training menu, his list of obligatory workshops to attend and of course, his curfew. All this paperwork neatly thrown away on the floor next to a few well read books, forgotten. How the mighty fall! He thinks jokingly, but he knows he deserved way, way worse.

No matter how dangerous and evil they had been to the ruling class, they were now being approached by all sorts of wealthy adults from that same ruling class. This hypocrisy is hilarious to Saryuu, whose mates have gotten offers from high ranking universities overseas or job offers. But El Dorado has already specified a very clear path for each one of them and Saryuu is dreading the upcoming years of fixing all the shit they have done. Whatever awaits them, it belongs to an adult-ruling world.

Even their food is regulated. Saryuu goes to the cafeteria three times a day. It's where he often sees Meia and Giris and a few other players from the Lagoon; their happy smiles and laughs filling the place. To the dismay of most of his old mates, the Alpha-Beta-Gamma trio has been assigned to them for “precautionary” reasons. This often creates a rift and fights often break between ex-Feidas and the new assigned guards. All that anger and frustration are probably just side effects from the cure and from losing their superhuman capacities – besides the mutual dislike between Protocol Omegas and the ex-Feida - so the brawls never last long. It all amuses Saryuu like a speckle of the old times interrupting his thoughtful, boring days, these sights of fighting just for fighting but at the same time, it distresses Fei.

Meia and Giris seem to be immune to the uneasiness many of their mates felt. The pair doesn’t seem that bothered by losing their powers even though they had to take the vaccine together, crying as they were carried by nurses, holding hands until the worst was over. A ridiculous never dying love that proved they were okay as long as they had each other.

Saryuu thinks about what such a thing means to him, if he has the right to such a feeling now that he has become a regular kid.

Ah… life used to be so simple for Saryuu. He never minded being alone before, he really didn’t. After all, he could read minds, control his surroundings and call upon whoever he wished. But he had been Saru then, a different person.

Saryuu starts to realize now how much he had wrongly defined himself by his power in the past. By that constant current of raw electrical energy flowing through him like blood, the world at the edge of crumbling if so he wished. Everything was now gone.

He feels weak, pathetic, human, disgustingly human, and still… so at peace. He will never admit it in front of anyone else, however.

But Fei knows. Fei can always read him well.

Which is why Saryuu had felt the lack of his presence when he was gone. When the mint haired boy had left Feida and joined Raimon, before their world started crumbling over.

Fei.

“I will show you that I can be forgiven.” Saryuu speaks, breaking the silence.

“I never said that I didn’t forgive you Saryuu. I haven’t forgotten however… I don’t think any of us should forget anything. But forgiving is a different thing…” 

Saryuu stares at the other boy. Fei looks more like a child in his hospital pajamas than he did in all the years he had been by Saryuu’s side. And Saryuu realizes they’re not children anymore, not after what they’ve gone through.

Fei observes him quietly, still holding the book in his lap. It’s an old book its pages yellow, with a purple dust cover, a story about a prince who lived in a planet far away and his travels across the universe. He remembers it from somewhere.

It was not too long ago. Saryuu recalls being by the library so often with Fei after hours, watching old movies on an ancient recorder and reading timeworn dusty books, mocking the ignorance of adults back then and now, feeling so right about their future and the new world order they would make together. They had traced everyone’s fate with the tip of their fingers, like a map of stars in the sky; dreams of power and chaos seemed so beautifully in tune with them then.

Saryuu had always been so curious by nature, so ambitious about the world that wanted to crush them, so he had sworn they would crush it instead.

He never counted on losing.

As he recalls long gone days he misses it, the peculiar look Fei gives him as he stares into his hands instead unable to say anything else. And then Fei hugs him.

He stares wide eyed, suddenly realizing how close they are. It feels good being so close to Fei, it had been too long. Saryuu has never fully appreciated how caring Fei really is. A boy orphaned by his mother early in life and later abandoned by his father, but still so kind, so full of love to give. He wants to say something, but it’s not really himself to show care. He ponders about all the things that happened in the last few weeks. And he starts to wonder about Fei and his encounter with his mother recently and why the boy looks so melancholic at times. It’s really not a subject that Fei nor Saryuu will touch openly right now. The wounds are too fresh, but it’s what he reflects about as he lets himself touch Fei’s arm gently, trying to be reassuring. Saryuu himself has never had any parents to delusion himself with – “parents” are practically an abstract idea to him -, but Fei did and quite recently he had had both again for a short time. 

Saryuu has lost all his powers, but on the other hand can see other things much more clearly now. Fei in his own way, wants to get closer again too.

“I want us to be what we were back then.” He blubbers out, unafraid of speaking his mind. “Without—the world domination thing. Do you think you can—do you think we can? Start over.”

_Can we go back_, he wants to say, something he has asked Fei to do before for him. But this situation and is plea are so, so different and no amount of time traveling can solve this for Saryuu now.

Fei blushes a bit, his eyes look dubious for a moment but full of feeling. Saryuu bites at his lower lip anxious. It’s in his nature to mock and joke, to brush off things like feelings with laughs but now he waits and feels his throat go dry. He can’t fix everything he has done but he can try this at least, it’s more important to him than he had ever realized before.

He has never felt this frail, this human before. Small, like child made beast and beast turned into boy again.

Fei answers him by smiling softly, his aqua eyes sparkle. Saryuu’s heart flutters in his chest, a sudden burst of excitement rushing through him as the other boy speaks.

“I missed you.”


End file.
